Ofsted tells two councils to improve children's services

Both Dorset Council and Thurrock Council were rated as “requires improvement” by the inspectorate following separate inspections earlier this year.

The inspection report for Thurrock states that while there are pockets of good practice across all areas of children’s social care, the majority of practice is “less than good”, specifically work relating to assessment and planning for children, securing a stable workforce, and supervision and management oversight.

“In the last inspection of safeguarding and looked-after children services in 2012, the local authority was judged to be good,” the report states.

“Following this inspection, senior officers and leaders did not continue to ensure that children and families received consistently good services.”

The inspection report for Dorset states that while the council’s director of children’s services and her senior team provide strong leadership and know which areas of the service need to be better, many of the improvement measures they have planned are not yet in place or have been too-recently implemented to have made a sustained difference.

“Consequently, children and young people in Dorset do not receive a consistently good enough service,” the report states.

“Referrals about children’s welfare are not always dealt with quickly or well enough. Such drift and delay generally stems from poor management oversight and decision making at this important early point of involvement with children and their families.”